Retirement of Dr. Yoshinori Kamo

Dr. Yoshinori Kamo, Professor and Chair of Sociology Department, will retire on August 15, 2022. He joined LSU Sociology Department as an assistant professor in 1989, immediately after receiving his PhD degree from University of Washington, Seattle. He was then promoted to associate and full professor at LSU.

Dr. Kamo was Director of Graduate Studies from 2007 to 2016 and became Department Chair after that. He will have finished two full terms at the time of retirement.

Dr. Kamo primarily taught large sections of Introductory Sociology course, converting many undergraduate students to Sociology major/minor. He also taught Multiple Regression Analyses, a required statistics course for first-year graduate students since 1992, having been known to be “a tough one.” Dr. Kamo also taught a senior-level family course, undergraduate statistics, and graduate statistics courses (both introductory and advanced). His students thrive in both academia and outside, including Matt Lee, Interim Provost of LSU, and Troy Blanchard, Dean of College of Humanities and Social Sciences at LSU.

Dr. Kamo directed students from the US, Turkey, Japan, Korea, Taiwan, and China, among others. He boasts one of the largest number of publications involving current/former students at LSU, with more than a dozen of them as co-authors. Dr. Kamo’s research areas span widely, from marriage and family, aging, social stratification, race/ethnicity, quantitative methods, to psychological well-being. He published 50+ journal articles, 30+ book chapters, and 8 books, both in English and Japanese.

During summer, Dr. Kamo taught intensive courses in Marriage and Family for graduate students at Keio University in Tokyo, the top private university in Japan. He also gave numerous guest lectures in the United States, Japan, and elsewhere, including those on luxurious cruiseship “Asuka II” during its around-the-world trips. He definitely enjoyed these cruises for two or three weeks usually from New York through West Cost going through Panama Canal.

In his spare time, Dr. Kamo also worked in Olympic Games (in Atlanta and Nagano), World Cup Soccer (in Japan), and other sport events, primarily as a coordinator for international broadcasting. He sure knows how to enjoy his life.

While he calls himself “an adopted Cajun” and “happily stuck in Louisiana,” Dr. Kamo decided to move on upon retirement. His destinations are Denver, CO (planning to be there for over a year) and then Honolulu, HI, to join his sons and their family in these two places. His e-mail address will stay the same (kamo@lsu.edu), so he asks you to drop him a note if you come to these interesting cities.

Congratulations, Dr. Kamo, on your retirement. You will be dearly missed.